Luke 4:18-19 (NKJV)
18 “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.”
The verses above are Jesus’ mandate. Jesus didn’t come to institute a behavior reform program for convicts. He came to preach good news to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty throughout the land! Jesus is our long-awaited year of jubilee – acceptance by God that never ends.
A Prophetic Play
I love reading the Old Testament because it is like watching a video of the realities revealed in the New Testament. The Hebrews were captives and enslaved in Egypt. Their deliverance from Pharaoh was a prophetic picture of our deliverance from sin. Moses who is a type of Jesus was used by God to bring their deliverance. Moses was unique because he was the only Hebrew not owned by Pharaoh. Moses was a free man. In the same way, Jesus was special because He was the only human who knew no sin. Since Jesus was not of Adam, He was not part of the slave race. This makes Him the perfect deliverer. When you’re locked up on the inside, you need help from someone who is on the outside.
In this play, Pharaoh represents the enslaver called sin. Moses the deliverer said to Pharaoh, “Let my people go”. Pharaoh refused, so he was destroyed. At the Red Sea, Pharaoh and his army was drowned. The Hebrews no longer had to fear Pharaoh and his corrupt slave system.
Exodus 14:13 (NKJV)
13 And Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever.
God’s destruction of Pharaoh demonstrated what God planned to do with sin on the cross. The Amplified Bible says, “God condemned sin in the flesh [subdued, overcame, deprived it of its power over all who accept that sacrifice],”
Romans 8:3 (AMP)
I want you to see Pharaoh wiped out, lying at the bottom of the Red Sea. That’s what God did to sin. Micah 7:19 says, God will “cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.” Another verse, Isaiah 1:18, says that God will make our scarlet sins as white as wool. Psalm 103:12 expresses the thought in yet another way: “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”
This image of our sin at the bottom of the sea means that Jesus accomplished what He came to do. He was the Lamb of God who TOOK AWAY the sin of the world! He took sin away just as the Red Sea took Pharaoh away. The idea that our sins are lost in a sea of forgetfulness is a comfort. We are no longer judged by our sins (Romans 8:1). When we fear judgment, ironically, we are tempted to sin even more, because we want to escape from the fear of judgment, and sin is often pleasurable for a time (see Hebrews 11:25). But, eventually, the fear of judgment returns. This is a vicious cycle. Spiritual growth requires that we recognize the total forgiveness that exists in Jesus Christ and that we rest in that forgiveness.
Sin in these passages is not a verb, but a noun. This is important to understand . See https://dellyoung.net/2017/04/03/sin-is-a-noun-grace-is-a-verb/
Jesus didn’t stop our ability to sin, He stopped sins ability to have dominion over us (Romans 6:14). Since sin had no hold on Jesus, on the cross Jesus took hold of sin and held on as God condemned sin in the flesh (Romans 8:3).
Why the cross? Why did God remove sin in this way? Think of it like this: If God had dropped the H-Bomb of judgement on Egypt and Pharaoh, all of the Hebrews would have been killed. In the same way if God judged sin in all of us, we would’ve been vaporized. God couldn’t tackle sin directly without judging us all. To save us, God became one of us. He marched right into the enemy’s camp, disguised in human flesh, yet without sin!
The good news of the Cross is the power of sin has been broken. Our enemy has been disarmed and defeated. Your sins are no longer held against you (Romans 4:8). Do this mean we can sin freely? Why would you want to go back and eat out of the dumpster when you now are seated at Christ’s banquet table? Before the cross, we had no choice; we were slaves to sin. But now we have a choice and that’s freedom! Not free TO sin, but free FROM sin!
AMEN LOVE THESE WORDS OF TRUTH. THANK YOU.